The present invention relates to a cigarette packet with an easy opening feature.
In particular, the present invention relates to an easy opening cigarette packet of the type provided with a tear ribbon, and more precisely to a packet fashioned from one layer of material only, that is to say, in which the cigarettes are enveloped by a single wrapper.
Cigarette packets are composed generally of three distinct wrappers: an inner foil wrapping, an outer wrapping of paper material, and an overwrapping of transparent and heat-sealable material.
For certain markets, however, manufacturers offer a packet designed as a single wrapper able to combine all the essential packaging functions, though in a more economical type of solution. In this instance, the wrapper consists in a single sheet of material that can be paper based or, preferably, a plastic. The properties of the plastic utilized, for example polypropylene, are such as to allow the fabrication of a suitably rigid packet capable of supporting the cigarettes to good effect; at the same time, the wrapper is waterproof and can be printed for presentational and advertising purposes.
The technique employed when wrapping cigarettes in a one-layer material is substantially the same as that utilized for the innermost foil wrapping of a composite type packet. Indeed the plastic wrapper is obtained by folding a single sheet of plastic material around a relative group of cigarettes.
In the case of conventional packets exhibiting the transparent overwrapping, it is the normal practice to apply a ribbon of minimal transverse dimensions to one face of the sheet from which the transparent overwrapping is fashioned, thus providing a guide line along which the packet opens with ease.
The finished packet emerges with the slender ribbon positioned on the inside face of the overwrapping, extending substantially around the edges of the top end face. In order that the consumer may seize the ribbon and tear open the overwrapping in the manner intended, the sheet is prepared with incisions made near to at least one of the two ends of the ribbon, in such a way as to provide at least one readily accessible tab on the finished packet, coinciding with the end of the ribbon, which can be taken hold of and pulled.
Likewise in the case of the one-layer wrapper, the prior art embraces the notion of applying a ribbon to facilitate the process of opening the packet. With the conventional type of packet, however, the incisions made in the overwrapping have no ultimate impact on airtightness, whereas in the case of the one-layer wrapper, a cut made in any part of the material must clearly jeopardize the hermetic seal afforded by the packet.
Various solutions have been proposed with a view to overcoming this problem, one of which is to avoid cutting entirely through the one-layer wrapper, but rather to make incisions that penetrate only a part of the overall thickness of the material. This type of solution has proved difficult to implement from a technical standpoint, since the blade utilized in making the incision tends to wear rapidly and lose its cutting edge: consequently, given the extremely limited thickness of the material, the blade will be rendered unable to make any impression whatever and subsequent laceration becomes impossible.
The object of the present invention is to provide a cigarette packet of the type comprising a one-layer wrapper, provided with an easy opening tear ribbon, such as will ensure a hermetic seal while affording ready access to at least one end of the ribbon. The aforementioned object is realized in an easy opening cigarette packet according to the present invention.